ON THE OUTDOORS.

Rockin', rollin', trollin' for cohos

Mike Tapper has a theory about music and fishing on his boat. The music should be rock 'n' roll. It should be played loudly, and if you want to catch salmon you should play the salmon's favorite songs.

This explains why some of the Eagles' greatest hits reverberated as Tapper steered the N'Pursuit out of the Indiana Harbor Yacht Club in Gary on a midsummer morning. Early fog mixed with some sun, but the sound of music held up well on Lake Michigan.

"They love the Eagles," Tapper said. "They like Led Zeppelin even more.

"When it slows down we get out Ted Nugent."

A mix of Illinois and Indiana fishermen gathered on Tapper's boat. We began in Indiana waters, but for deeper depths we were traveling toward Chicago. Lake Michigan alternates between beauty and beast behavior, but this day was calm. The waves were only 1-footers, and when Tapper said we were going to "go with the wind," the first thought we had was: How?

"There's not much, buddy," he said.

We were in pursuit of coho salmon, and it was a 55-minute ride to our starting spot 20 miles off of Chicago. The city's big shoulders were only barely visible through the fog. Tapper, a member of the North Coast Charter Association, has operated his N'Pursuit Adventure Charters business for 15 years, and he knows the area.

Tapper is a genial host who enjoys the entertainment (turn up the volume) and fishing aspects of running a 33-foot boat around Lake Michigan. He began arranging six sturdy rods with planers at the rear of the boat, the 25-pound test lines trailing at various distances.

"Let's bob around here and see what happens," Tapper said. "We have enough metal out there to scare 'em. They'll be jumping in the boat giving up."

With the boat sitting in 87 feet of water, it took only minutes for a salmon to bite on one of those hooks. The 5-pounder came straight at the boat, and I reeled it in easily.

"I love the smell of coho in the morning!" Tapper bellowed, paraphrasing a famous line from the movie "Apocalypse Now."

"It smells like victory! I like it when we get the first fish before the rods are out. I don't care if we get another fish. We have something to make the cooler stinky."

Maybe he shouldn't have said that about not getting another fish because the fishing pace slowed down.

For Curt Hicken of Benld in Downstate Illinois, this was a maiden voyage salmon fishing on Lake Michigan, so everything was new and fun, especially when he hooked a fish. Surprise--he hauled in a lake trout after a marvelous splashing battle.

Mike Zrailka, the first mate, estimated it weighed 6 pounds. Tapper said he should have guessed that it was a 15-pounder.

"It will be tomorrow," I said.

The fish actually weighed 7 pounds.

"Fish grow a pound an hour on this boat," Tapper said.

Hicken said his lack of Lake Michigan experience meant he didn't recognize the trout's species.

"I don't know how to tell these fish apart," he said. "It was bigger than a bluegill. But there's a couple of fish out there, by golly."

Tapper said the fishing was faster a few days earlier when charters seized up to 17 salmon. Zrailka said the key strategy is to catch the "stupid fish."

"I've been trying to do the same thing with wild turkeys, but I haven't found one stupid enough," Hicken said.

Tapper was intrigued by the cooperation of the lake trout.

"If we can get these lakers to go, that would be a beautiful thing," he said.

However, neither the salmon nor the lake trout demonstrated the type of hunger pangs necessary to keep the action going full throttle. Tapper tried purple spoons as lures. He even changed from the Eagles to Led Zeppelin.

"I sure hate to troll across the desert," he said as the fish ignored us for a while.

Cohos participated in the sport at a slightly higher rate than lakers, and Bill Love of Mapleton, Ill., brought in a fighting fish.

"It had a little bit of an attitude," Zrailka said.

"Yep, that's the one I was waiting for," Love said.

Love suggested a superstitious procedure to produce fishing luck. The fisherman should turn his back to the water and toss a quarter over his left shoulder. Love took a coin and flipped. Only it was a nickel.

"I'm out of change," he said.

"How about a dime?" I asked while rummaging in my pockets.

Hicken had a quarter. He wished, he tossed.

"Curt," I teased, "you missed the lake."

More coins materialized. After five deposits in the water, a lake trout bit.

"Somebody got a roll of quarters?" Love asked.

But we were plumb out of change. And tunes too. Yet with eight salmon and lake trout in the cooler, there was plenty to cook up several fine dinners.